College kid came home for Thanksgiving. He was happy to be home and we were happy to see him. He walked in the door a little before midnight, tired and a bit worn out from a day spent on planes, trains and automobiles. I hugged him tight, offered him food and promptly went to bed. In the morning he was gone again. Off to see the girl friend and the best friend and the other friends he’s missed while he’s been toiling away on the other side of the country.

A couple of months ago I ran into an old friend. His son was heading off to college as well and we were talking about the Thanksgiving homecoming that at the time was several months off.

“He’ll walk in the door, drop off his laundry and head out to see the girlfriend,” my friend said to me. “That’s what I did.”

“Oh, come on,” I said in disbelief as though a spaceship full of little green men landing in the middle of our backyard seemed a more likely possibility. “He wouldn’t do that.”

Oh yes he would.

It was a good 36 hours before I saw him again.

Thank God for Thanksgiving. House arrest. At least for one day.

Letting go has never been one of my strong suits.

It starts the day they come into the world. You hold their tiny little bodies in your arms, amazed at their magnificence and if you’re honest, daunted by the task at hand. They grow and stretch and stretch and grow and stretch some more and you watch in amazement.

It’s awesome. It is. Really, really awesome and you marvel as you witness it all.

We’re working ourselves out of a job. Launching them into the big wide world full of hope and promise with a suitcase full of clothes and a backpack full of life skills to send them on their way and you stand at the doorway waving madly. “Goodbye,” you say. “Good luck. Work hard.”

And then you wait. And you hope. And you pray.

There are challenges out there in that big wide world. Little ones, like getting enough sleep and keeping your drawers full of clean clothes and using a computer with a rogue keyboard that types letters you didn’t necessarily press. There are big ones too, like time management and studying for finals and hours spent with a football coach who says things your mother told you never, ever to say, unless a mouth full of Ivory soap is your secret desire. The big wide world is, well, big.

So in between the ins and outs, the friends to visit and video games to play, the trips to the school to see old teachers and the hours spent on Facebook updates, I waited. Waited for the cup of tea and the chat at the kitchen table. Waited to hear the lessons learned in those four months away. Waited for the sound of an older John Boy Walton as he reflected back on life on Walton’s mountain. Waited as the camera panned the newly fallen snow on the mountaintop.

Waited for the moment that never came.

There was a girlfriend to see and a best friend to visit and a houseful of buddies he hadn’t hung out with in a while. There were emails to send and lots of text messages. Yes, there were lots of text messages. And in between all that, he was around. But not in the way I imagined. No, not the way I imagined.

Being a mother is hard, sometimes. You want to hold them close, but have to let them go.

And so you wait. And you hope. And you pray. Because there is little you can do. He has to figure it out for himself. It’s what you prepared him for. What you wanted for him all along.